March 19, 2009 archive

I just caught this and will say, this is what should have occurred after we invaded and rid the country of the Taliban rule, and while we went after bin Laden and al Qaeda!

Will it be to late?

I think it is already, and Hopefully I’m Wrong, Very Wrong, this time:  

1. The NY Times reports the U.S. plans a vastly expanded Afghan security force. “President Obama and his advisers have decided to significantly expand Afghanistan’s security forces in the hope that a much larger professional army and national police force could fill a void left by the central government and do more to promote stability in the country”.

   The plan awaiting Obama’s approval calls for a force of 400,000 Afghan troops and national police officers. “The cost projections of the program… range from $10 billion to $20 billion over the next six or seven years.”

   “The cost is relatively small compared to the cost of not doing it – of having Afghanistan either disintegrate, or fall into the hands of the Taliban, or look as though we are dominating it,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

   Meanwhile, the Times also reports an Afghan legislator and four others were killed by a powerful bomb attack on the the road between Kandahar and Helmand Provinces in southeast Afghanistan. All five travelling in the car were killed on the road a few miles from Lashkar Gah. “The legislator, Dad Mohammad Khan, was a former mujahedeen commander who served as Helmand’s head of intelligence after the American-led invasion of the country in late 2001.”

   As noted in this morning’s news, the CS Monitor is reporting that Key Afghan insurgents are open to talks. “Kabul has opened preliminary negotiations with the country’s most dangerous rebel faction, the Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network. The group is accused of masterminding some of the most brazen attacks here in recent years, and a deal with them will likely be key to ending the war.”

   Elsewhere, the NY Times reports Pakistan is accused of a link to recent Kabul attack. According to Afghan intelligence officials, the Feb. 11 attack on the Justice Ministry and prison department building that left 26 people dead and more than 50 wounded, was the work of eight armed men wearing suicide vests that were “trained in Pakistan’s lawless border region”. The Afghans suggest “Pakistani intelligence had a role in the planning of the attacks.”

Four Four continues with climate change and one third of U.S. birds are threatened, the Tongan volcanic eruption, and naked short sales fraud may have toppled Lehman Brothers.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Yesterday was a wonderful day for me and for everyone else who hopes that state killing will eventually be abolished in the US:

Gov. Bill Richardson, who has supported capital punishment, signed legislation to repeal New Mexico’s death penalty, calling it the “most difficult decision in my political life.”

The new law replaces lethal injection with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The repeal takes effect on July 1, and applies only to crimes committed after that date.

“Regardless of my personal opinion about the death penalty, I do not have confidence in the criminal justice system as it currently operates to be the final arbiter when it comes to who lives and who dies for their crime,” Richardson said.

Europe’s human rights watchdog on Thursday hailed the decision as “a victory for civilization.” The American Civil Liberties Union called it “a historic step and a clear sign that the United States continues to make significant progress toward eradicating capital punishment once and for all.”

AP.

I wrote about this on several occasions, and I requested repeatedly in those essays that you call the Governor and urge him to sign the bill.  It is especially for all of those phone calls to the Governor and your emails to him that I want to thank you.  This is a great victory.  And, truthfully, it would not have happened without your support.  I applaud you!

I know that one abolitionist friend today is joyfully wearing a t-shirt that says, “Someday happens.”

For the record: New Mexico became the second state, after New Jersey, to repeal the death penalty legislatively since 1965, when both Iowa and West Virginia repealed their death penalty laws.  New York’s death penalty was struck down as unconstitutional, and it has not been re-enacted.   Twelve other states never had the death penalty: they either outlawed it before 1965, or after 1972 after Furman v. Georgia struck down all death penalty laws, they never enacted a new one. Fifteen states, including New Mexico, now do not have the death penalty.  Thirty-five states, the military and the U.S. federal government retain it.

Thanks!  Let’s do this again soon!!

h/t Abe Bonowitz  

Sorry to say, those 3 million people are in France, not the US. Why is it that the French hit the streets while we Americans don’t?  Like the writer of the piece says, “France is France.” I wish Americans hit the streets more often. It might not fix anything in the long run (though it just might), but it sure beats huddling in front of our teevees and just “taking it,” which is what we’re all doing now. If the AIG bonus nonsense was happening over in France, I guarantee there would be about 1.5 bazillion pissed off frenchies outside the corporate HQ setting up Madame Guillotine. As to why we Americans don’t get out there like the French do, I suspect it’s a side effect (a planned side effect?) of the whole “rugged individualism” myth, that toxic, retrograde aspect of the American character that says: I got mine, screw everybody else, and anyway “solidarity” starts with a “s” and so does that there “socialism”, so it’s gotta be bad fer ya.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/eur…

Why is it only in France that such demonstrations are taking place?

After all, it is people the world over who are bearing the brunt of the recession. But they are not on the street.

The answer is simple. France is France. It has its own political and social codes, forged in the Revolution and over the course of two turbulent centuries.

A bloggy friend of the Dog’s called Lady Libertine recently asked a question that has been haunting the Dog ever since. It is a pretty simple question; how do we who take the issue of our apparent State Sponsored Torture program seriously get others to do the same? It is one of the tragedies of America in the 21st Century that we know from public statements about it that the United States has, at the very least, tortured three of our prisoners in the Orwellianly named War On Terror. From recent International Committee of the Red Cross report that was leaked it is almost certain we have tortured other prisoners as well.  

George W. Bush Wants

To Write An

“Authoritarian” Book  

A Defining Moment for Treasury Secretary



By JACKIE CALMES

Published: March 18, 2009

WASHINGTON – All three of President Obama’s top economic advisers were on message when they appeared Sunday on separate television talk shows. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, they said, had concluded, based on lawyers’ advice, that he could not stop the $165 million in bonuses that the American International Group was even then doling out to hundreds of employees.

But when Mr. Geithner and other officials met at the White House that night, the president’s political advisers – who had agreed to the day’s message – decided the growing outcry left Mr. Obama no choice but to publicly second-guess his Treasury secretary.

The next morning on camera, the president said he had directed Mr. Geithner to find a legal way “to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

MI5 faces new rules on terror interrogations

PM orders code on questioning abroad

Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian, Thursday 19 March 2009

The government yesterday bowed to growing pressure over allegations of Britain’s complicity in torture by promising to draw up and publish new guidelines for the security and intelligence agencies when they are involved in interrogating detainees abroad.

Announcing the unexpected move to MPs, Gordon Brown said he condemned torture “absolutely” but had asked the intelligence and security committee (ISC) to help draw up new guidelines “in order to have systems that are robust”.

In a separate move, the prime minister told MPs that compliance with the new guidelines would be monitored by intelligence services commissioner Sir Peter Gibson, a former appeal court judge, who will report annually.

Brown’s announcement, which follows a succession of revelations in the Guardian about the ill-treatment and torture of UK nationals and residents abroad, appeared to be a tacit admission that existing guidelines were open to abuse.

USA

Fed to Pump $1.2 Trillion Into Markets

Greatly Expanded Purchases Are Designed to Lower Interest Rates, Stimulate Borrowing

By Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, March 19, 2009; Page A01

The Federal Reserve yesterday escalated its massive campaign to stabilize the economy, saying it would flood the financial system with an additional $1.2 trillion.

The decision by the Fed to buy government bonds and mortgage-related securities is designed to lower borrowing costs for home mortgages and other types of loans, thereby stimulating economic activity. The central bank, effectively, will print more money to pay for the purchases.

Combined with the billions already deployed by the Fed, the new money dwarfs even the biggest government bailouts of financial companies.Yesterday’s announcement amounts to a recognition by Fed leaders that the economy has gotten much worse than they had forecast at their last policymaking meeting, in January. It also is their attempt to show market participants that, three months after cutting short-term interest rates to zero, they still have more tools to try to bolster the economy.